Review of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) by Eric W — 22 Mar 2010

After three seasons of declining viewer ratings, the original series of Star Trek was cancelled from television screens. Just a few years after the cancellation, the show's creator Gene Rodenberry hatched a plan to revive the series with a high budget film. Sadly though the first attempt at a revival isn't as good as it should have been.

We are a few years after the conclusion of the final season and Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) has been promoted to Admiral, thus no longer working on board the star ship Enterprise. Mr. Spock has now left Starfleet and is attempting win favour back with the Vulcan elders, and Dr. McCoy is now working on Earth. Everyone else is exactly where they were, except the Enterprise is now under the command of Willard Decker (Stephen Collins). When a strange alien cloud begins a destructive path towards Earth, Admiral Kirk decides he that he needs to get up from behind his desk and take back command of the ship, which of course leads to friction between him and Decker who is demoted to first officer. Before setting off on their voyage to save Earth Kirk brings back Dr. McCoy and Spock so then everything is back to normal.

The film's story is mainly a psychological exploration of loneliness, which is fine when it is an hour long TV episode. In a US TV series this plot would work well, with episodes around it that are more action based. When a film over two hours long however, it does need something in terms of action to keep the audience entertained. That is something that this film forgets to incorporate, and is why for people who are not die hard Star Trek fans will find extremely boring. A true testament to this film's slowness is when Kirk approaches the Enterprise in a shuttle, a music-only sequence that last over two minutes and feels like longer.

Because the original sets for the Star Trek series were taken down after the show was cancelled, this meant that the Enterprise had to be rebuilt from scratch. The original ship for those who watched the TV show will know that it had a variety of colours and was fairly vibrant looking. The new look Enterprise though is grey, drab and unattractive. The crew member's uniforms have also been changed into a long blue outfit which looks like the things children wear to bed with the feet sown on the bottom.

It is clear that between the time of the show's cancellation and the making of the film that the fans had hyped them up too much, to make them think that they had a smash hit sci-fi film on their hands. What they had instead was a dull and boring examination of the psyche, which was a poor start to a new franchise. Thank God for The Wrath of Kahn.